


The Dark One

by Eida



Category: The Last Unicorn - All Media Types, The Last Unicorn - Peter S. Beagle
Genre: Gen, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 01:07:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5477423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eida/pseuds/Eida
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Her memory is not the memory of mortals, dim and muddled with the passage of time... She is immortal, unchanging. The world itself will die, and every moment in her immeasurably long life will remain, perfectly clear, as if it just happened—as if it is still happening.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dark One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fells](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fells/gifts).



> I hope you have a wonderful Yuletide!

She is the storm.

The harpy Celaeno is not the rain, gentle and life-giving, but the wind that whips at the earth, uprooting trees, tearing homes asunder. She is the dark clouds that veil the sun's light from the cold earth beneath. She is rage, and wrath, and fury, and above all else, she is hunger.

She will fly, she will shriek, she will rend apart, she will destroy, she will devour, forever and ever and ever. This is her nature, as immutable as gravity. She is Celaeno, the dark one, and she and her sisters have existed for longer than there have been humans to name them and tremble—or, in the case of her _other_ sister, the gentler one, though no less swift—the one who is of the rainbow as the storm subsides, rather than the ferocity of the storm itself—she, too, has existed for longer than there have been humans to see her and dare to hope.

Life and death, creation and destruction, beauty and ugliness, hope and despair—one follows the other in a never-ending cycle.

The sky is split with lightning above the dark ocean. She screams, adding to the cacophony of the thunder and crashing waves.

The harpy swoops downward, fighting against the wind, tearing at the air currents with her talons, and laughs.

What is time to an immortal? A thousand, million, billion, trillion moments shimmering in an infinite lifespan, spread before her like a never-ending banquet, each flaring in a brilliant, all-consuming Now before passing into memory.

Her memory is not the memory of mortals, dim and muddled with the passage of time, sometimes shifting, twisted by their own desires for what they wish the past to have been. She is immortal, unchanging. The world itself will die, and every moment in her immeasurably long life will remain, perfectly clear, as if it just happened—as if it is still happening.

She flies over a gathering of structures, built of wood and full of humans. She circles once, twice, studying it; the humans catch sight of her, and gaze up in awe and fear. She crashes down into their midst, shrieking, and they flee; with a beat of her metallic wings, she springs back into the air to give chase.

She devours the feast sitting before the king at his table. He has sinned; what his sin was does not concern her. She rips the tablecloth to shreds, snatches up what food she can in her sharp teeth, and whatever food she doesn't eat she tears apart with her talons and coats in filth. The king's hunger will never be sated as long as Celaeno and her sister-harpies remain near; Celaeno's hunger will never be sated, either, for it is not in her nature to ever be satisfied.

She nests in a cave on a secluded island. The shore is rocky and cold, inhospitable to man or beast. A ship that tried to make ground here would have its hull torn open. Few ships even come near; no wise captain would plot a course anywhere near this place. The wind blows through the tunnels of the cave, wailing, hissing; the sound lulls her to sleep, and she dreams of hurricanes.

She watches a city burn. She catches the updraft, circling above, feeling the heat on her feathers, admiring the way the firelight plays off the bronze of her wings. A building crumbles as its supports are burned away, and she exults in its destruction and the chaotic beauty of the fire beneath. She beats her wings and crows; a storm approaches, but no rain will come, only lightning—more fire, streaking across the sky, swifter even than a harpy diving to her prey.

She soars above a battlefield. The battle has ended; the dead are legion. Neither side had victory, but both left corpses. The carrion birds gather for the feast—a great dark host of crows, ravens, vultures. She does not join them, but she delights in the way they feed on death. They depend on death to stave off their own deaths—but death will have them in the end, as it will have all mortal things; it is as hungry as she is.

She soars above the clouds, where the air grows thin, near the empty void above. Frost forms on her bronze wings; she hisses at the sensation. The stars shine above her, in their celestial dance, swirling through the night sky; she imagines them bursting, one by one, in fiery explosions, making the night sky as bright as day, and she imagines their light winking out, leaving the sky in pure darkness. It will happen. It is happening. It has happened.

The universe is dark, and cold; all that was is no longer. What is a being who thrives on death and destruction with nothing left to destroy? What is a being of infinite hunger with nothing to devour? She huddles with her sisters, formless, waiting; they are not alone.

The host of the undying, the eternal, wait. All the infinite nothingness gathers together into one minute point of All-possibility—and then there is light, there is heat, and there is a scream that tears at the edges of the new reality itself as the harpies unfurl their wings, glinting in the light of newborn stars.

There is a cage.

There is a cage with iron bars that will rust away to nothing. There is a cage that will fall into splinters. There is a cage that will utterly cease to be.

There is a cage that imprisons the harpy Celaeno, held together with magic that despite her rage, despite her strength, despite all that she is, the harpy cannot destroy. She does not understand it. This is a thing that should not be. She beats her wings and claws in vain at the cage's sides, but all her efforts are futile.

There is a cage opened, not by the harpy's fury, but at the touch of the horn of a unicorn—a fellow immortal. Celaeno flies free, glorying in the open air, burning with rage at her imprisonment—and at the fact that she did not free herself.

There is a cage built by a petty woman. A mortal, a witch who named herself after a goddess of luck. The witch is ill luck to many she meets. She is ill luck to herself.

The witch dies, still cackling, a harsh, dry sound, torn apart by Celaeno's talons. Her blood soaks into the soil, and spatters on the harpy's wings. Celaeno takes flight, soaring up into the cold night sky, leaving the Midnight Carnival in shambles behind her.

There is a cage that holds the harpy Celaeno. For an brief, flickering instant. For a moment.

For eternity.


End file.
